The British Campaign in France and Flanders—January to July, 1918

by Arthur Conan Doyle

On March 28 there was again a very heavy attack upon the 186th Brigade. The stormers surged right up to the muzzles of the rifles, but never beyond them. Over 200 dead were found lying in front of one company. One isolated platoon of the 5th West Ridings was cut off and was killed to the last man. Farther to the right there were several determined attacks upon the 187th Brigade and the 4th Australian Brigade, the latter being under the orders of the Sixty-second Division. These also were repulsed in the open, but the bombing, in which the Germans had the advantage of a superiority of bombs, was more difficult to meet, and the 5th Yorkshire Light Infantry were driven from Rossignol Wood and the ground which they had so splendidly captured the night before.

About 11 A.M. on this day the Forty-first Division had been ordered up to man the east of Gommecourt. A brigade of this division, the 124th, co-operated with the 8th West Yorkshires and some of the Australians in a fresh attack upon Rossignol Wood, which failed at first, but eventually, after dark, secured the north end of the wood, and greatly eased the local pressure. On March 29 and 30 the positions were safely held, and the attacks less dangerous. On the evening of the latter date the Sixty-second Division was relieved by the Thirty-seventh.

Whilst these events had occurred upon the front of the Sixty-second Division, Russell's New Zealanders were holding the line to the south in their usual workmanlike fashion. From March 26 they held up the Germans, whose main attacks, however, were north and south of them, though March 27 saw several local advances against the Canterburys and the Rifles. On March 30 the New Zealanders hit back again at La Signy Farm, with good results, taking 295 prisoners. It was a smart little victory at a time when the smallest victory was indeed precious.

Fourth and Fifth Corps. March 21.

Reverting now to the general situation upon March 27, the weak point was north and south of the Somme to the south of Albert. Between the river and Harbonnière the left wing of the Fifth Army had been broken, as will be told when we come to consider the operations in that area. The German advance was pouring down the line of the river with the same fierce rapidity with which it had recently thundered forward over the old Somme battle-fields. Having annihilated the local resistance on the left bank of the river, where Colonel Horn and 400 nondescripts did all that they could, they were pushing on from Cerisy to Corbie. General Watts of the Nineteenth Corps, whose defence was one of the outstanding features of the whole operations, was hard put to it to cover his left wing, so in loyal co-operation the Third Army north of the river detached the hard-worked Cavalry Corps, who were always called upon at moments of supreme crisis, and who never failed to answer the call. It was actually engaged to the north of the river at the time, but disengaged itself in part, though the enemy was holding Cerisy and Chipilly and had got a bridge across the river which would enable them to get to the rear of General Watts' Corps. The means by which this very dangerous German move was kept within bounds comes within the history of the Fifth Army. Suffice it to say that the cavalry passed over the river and that the Seventh Corps, north of the river, extended to cover the wider front, throwing out a defensive flank along the north bank from Sailly-le-Sec to Aubigny.

Along the whole line to the north the pressure was great all day upon March 27, but the attacks upon the Fourth Corps, which were particularly severe, were repulsed with great loss at Beaumont Hamel, Bucquoy, north of Puisieux, and at Ablainzeville. Near Bucquoy the Sixty-second Division in these two days repelled, as already narrated, eight separate German attacks. This fighting has to be fitted in with that recounted in the previous chapter near Ayette, in connection with the Thirty-first Division, in order to get a complete view of the whole German effort and the unbroken British line. Hamel was the only fresh village to the north of Albert which was taken by the Germans that day.

Fourth and Fifth Corps. March 21.

March 28 was remarkable for the very desperate engagement upon the front of the Sixth and Seventeenth Corps, which has been already described, and which marked the limit of the whole German advance in the northern area. The Fourth Corps farther south had its own share of the fighting, however, as already told in connection with the defence of Bucquoy by the Sixty-second Division. The line was held, however, and save for a small strip of Rossignol Wood, no gain at all came to solace the Germans for very heavy losses.

All through these operations it is worthy of note that an important part was played by reorganised bodies of men, so mixed and broken that no name can be assigned to them. Officers stationed in the rear collected these stragglers, and led them back into gaps of the line, where their presence was sometimes of vital importance. A divisional general, speaking of these curious and irregular formations, says: "There was no panic of any kind. The men of all divisions were quite willing to halt and fight, but as the difficulty of orders reaching them made them uncertain as to their correct action, they came back slowly and in good order. Once they received some definite orders they fell into line and dug themselves in at once." At one point 4000 men were collected in this fashion.

In the Australian area the enemy occupied Dernancourt, but otherwise the whole line was intact. It was still necessary, however, to keep a defensive line thrown back along the north bank of the Somme, as the situation to the south, especially at Marcelcave, was very dangerous. Thus, the Seventh Corps covered this flank from Corbie to Sailly, and then ran north to Treux on the Albert-Amiens Railway. The arrival of the cavalry to the south of the river had spliced the weak section, so that on the morning of March 29 the British commanders from north to south had every cause to be easier in their minds. An inactive day was the best proof of the severity of the rebuff which the Germans had sustained the day before, nor were matters improved from their point of view when upon March 30 they attacked the Australians near Dernancourt and lost some thousands of men without a yard of gain, or when the New Zealanders countered them, with the capture of 250 prisoners and many machine-guns.